


Garbage Day

by lesbomancy



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: F/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Republic Strategic Information Service, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-21
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-05-22 11:53:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6078336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbomancy/pseuds/lesbomancy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even when he's supposed to calm down he can't help but do what he used to do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Garbage Day

He was there again. The dropship shaking as it entered the atmosphere, the HUD on his helmet fogging and his own panicked breathing as the vessel’s klaxon went off and they went into a spiral into the main city. He thought of her, his brash and rageful dead wife. Impact rattled him as it did every night, the sensation of falling to earth the same even after a thousand times. The taste of metal in his mouth. The broken bones, the stench of boiling metal and pools of blood.. the sight of his comrades lying dead in pieces; scattered around dropship which now resembled a pile of scrap than high grade military hardware it was moments before impact.

And like every time he went back to that day he felt the flash and the warmth and the dead of everyone where it was supposed to be nothing but routine. The panicked orders of the Republic cruiser he served cutting out into pure nothingness, the thousands of civilian and military lives cut short because an Imperial citizen couldn’t stand the Galactic Republic evacuating civilians from one of the worlds given to the Empire in the treaty.

The crash repeated itself. Death repeated itself. Guilt. Loss. Regret. All of them kept bombarding him over and over until he shot up in a panicked sweat, the pistol he kept underneath his pillow held outward as he scanned the entire room and his bright blue eyes checked every conceivable corner. Sal was at his side, enjoying what little sleep she could get since the birth of their children. She was used to his dreams at this point and wasn’t even phased when he woke up how he did.

Norri leaned over and gave a gentle kiss to his chubby green wife, brushing her burgandy locks away from her face as he simply took a moment with his nose buried in her neck to collect himself. None of the medications took the nightmares away, none of them eradicated the paranoia or the anxiety or the fear.

What little medication he took was to quell the chemical imbalances. According to the doctors he spoke to everything else was phychological, the few Jedi he consulted agreeing that his wounds were of the soul and not the body. He hated those answers.

He let his eyes open again, placing his blaster back in it’s home before he noticed the blinking light on his datapad. A message. He took the device and leaned over the double crib where his children lay asleep. After seeing them silent he walked through the automatically retracting door to the balcony.

Noise immediately bombarded him in every direction. Ships above, people below and others in their houses having parties and enjoying life on all ends. They lived in an Organa-aligned Alderaan town which was founded for the blue collar worker, most of the people here being refugees, turncoats or servant families. Sal fell in love with it as soon as they visited and while it was about as active as Nar Shaddaa it had a better air quality and was a good place to raise children comparatively.

Reeling back into reality he clicked the datapad on, the message on the screen being an encrypted file sent by person designating themselves as LB. It stood for “Little Brother,” the analyst which took Norri under their wing when they transferred to the Strategic Information Services on Coruscant. He quickly got the file open and began to read it.

“Long time no see. Hope you & drug dealer wife are OK. Know you’re working for Organa intelligence now but I got a lead on someone going after you. Bothan (plus entourage) assassin. Some Thul cronies leaked your name to a crime boss, the ones who we did the spice hit on in the Red Light Sector. They’re staying down the road & are probably going to try & hit you soon. Boss says commission rates apply if you meet him first. Keep eyes open.

XOXO - LB”

Dekk’s sharp features quickly became all the more pointed at the thought of an altercation. The honeymoon phase between him and Salin was now ending in more ways than one now that he had been found by an old enemy. He had left the SIS almost a year ago, doing substantially safer contracting work for the noble houses of Alderaan. He must have been getting sloppy to get caught on camera by someone. With a heavy sigh of trepidation he looked down and typed a return message.

“Thanks. Only doing this for the family. Will intercept. Transfer funds now, please.”

His finger tapped send and he returned inside. The children fussed at the noises but eventually calmed down.

“Get the fuck back in bed, Nor.” Salin mumbled, sprawling out in the bed and scratching her gut groggily.

He normally didn’t ignore her but given the fact that she said that whenever he got out of the bed (whether she was awake or not) gave him no cause for alarm. Dekk opened the closet and once inside pulled on a trick wall to get into his ready room. Guns, gadgetry and all manner of clothes littered the bedroom sized walk-in closet.

Dekk dressed simply in a pair of trousers, boots, a tank top and a long coat. It was closing to autumn on Alderaan so he wouldn’t be out of place. From the gun rack his hands hovered over two choices before he stuffed them in his coat. A DE-92 heavy blaster and a sawed-off Tong Armories scattergun. He put the blaster in his chest holster and stuffed the scattergun into the waist of his pants.

As he exited he moved across the room to kiss Salin’s cheek before heading out their house. The blaring artificial lighting greeted him as well as a decent post-last call crowd. Dockworkers were already getting ready to go on shifts and some protocol droids were already milling about and doing their individual chores.

He didn’t need to do any research as to where these assassins would be stayed, knowing full well the type of garbage that came into the town on a regular basis simply because it was his business to know. The Lazy Thranta was a convenient, seedy and genuinely cheap location which peacekeepers rarely frequented. Within a few minutes the disgustingly cheesy neon sign indicated his arrival and he entered quietly.

In spite of all the activity outside, the place itself was nearly dead. The first floor cantina was cleaning up after last call and the clerk at the desk didn’t really look all that interested in doing their job as they watched a Huttball match on the television set in front of them.

Norri moved to slick his hair back before approaching the desk, quietly clearing his throat. “Hey Jessup. Bothan come through here with some friends recently?”

The rodian clerk turned to Norri before letting out the closest thing it could do to a smile, leaning over the counter to hug Norri. “Armed to the teeth from the looks of it. If you cause any problems it was not my fault. Good to see you, Dekk boy. How’s the ball of anger?”

“She’s fine. Adjusting.” He smiled, almost blushing at the question until a hotel keycard was placed in his hand.

“After that stunt you pulled with those Echani you can go into the noble’s suite and arrest everyone in there, Dekk. You’re a good thing for us so if you’re looking for bad guys then all I have to say is that the cameras are going to be off for an hour.” The rodian punched Norri in the shoulder with a friendly chuckle.

Norri turned the card around in his hand, looking at the number. Their room was on the second floor. “Probably will get messy. You should leave.”

Jessup waved his hands about, having none of it. “Walls are reinforced. They don’t usually last long against you. So just get it over with.”

After offering a meek thank you to Jessup, Norri moved towards the stairs and went up to the second floor. Door after door passed until he arrived at their room, picked specifically because it was in a corner to an alley with a fire escape attached.

He took a deep breath. This was not the typical Dekk way of doing things, not stealthy or planned or coordinated at all. He was at the point where such a thing didn’t need planning; he was dealing with pests which endangered his two beautiful little girls and the wife which kept him from floating away. He closed his eyes and prepared himself, hands dug deep into his pockets.

The card was pushed into the slot and he kicked the door open, blaster and scattergun both held out as he passed through the threshold. The five men inside looked to be cleaning their weapons as they watched television. Two sat on the bed in each other’s arms and the other three were scattered about. One was looking out the window and the other two were at a small end table playing pazaak. Two humans. Gamorrean. Rattataki. Twi'lek.

No bothan.

He pulled the pistol forward and unloaded into the man at the window, scorch mark sizzling into his back as his body jerked forward and became limp. He turned and unloaded the scattergun four times to the men on the bed, killing them both as hundreds of micropellets riddled their bodies above the waist and gave them a relatively painless death.

The two humans playing cards reached for their blasters and one of them managed to put a few shots past Norri’s head before he too was put down with a direct shot to the heart. His comrade fell shortly thereafter with an equally clean scorch mark placed between his eyes.

In the course of four seconds the entire room went quiet, Dekk moving around with a hunter’s purpose in search of the bothan until the assassin moved directly into his hands - it ran out of the bathroom and tackled him. Norri dropped both of his weapons and hurled the bothan across the room, adopting an aggressive CQC stance as he deflected blow after blow with his elbow and shoulder.

For an assassian he almost came off as an untrained thug, Norri quickly learning his technique just from letting him pound on his body. An opening presented itself and Norri reached around to grab the bothan’s neck, driving a connecting elbow thrust into it’s neck. As it gasped for air, Norri moved to grab one of the dead thug’s pistols and unloaded three shots into it. Two in the heart, one in the head.

The taste of metal returned. So did the stench of burning corpses. He wasn’t there but he was at the same time. He quickly moved to gather up his weapons and headed out the door, hands stuffed into the pockets of his long coat as he hurriedly made an escape for the alleyway. The tell-tale sirens of Organa guards blared overhead, peacekeepers being especially on edge since the war pushed into full swing.

He went directly into a small shop, picking up a bulk package of diapers which was so large it was almost comical. As soon as he left he kept to alleyways and untraveled roads, quickly making his way home. He dropped the spent cartridge for the scattergun into a dumpster at one point and his coat in another. Once he arrived home he went directly to his secret little room after setting the giant diaper container next to his daughters’ changing station, placing all of his weapons and his gear up as quietly as possible.

He wanted to stop thinking about it. To stop reliving it. Killing was a bad action but it had to be done sometimes and he just wished he would stop feeling like he was back there every time he did it. Norri pressed his head against the wall as his datapad chirped, a quick glance showing him that Little Brother transferred the funds and they already had the kills confirmed.. he even got a bonus for killing the others. That was something he could rationalize.

Norri rubbed a hand down his face and shuffled back to bed in his boxers. Salin having gotten up since he returned and already the sound of a shower permeated from the bathroom to where he lay. She would chew him out later for going out in the middle of the night and waking her up but in all truthfulness?

He loved it when she yelled at him.


End file.
